“Apple is being blocked from capturing 3D, aerial footage of Norway capital Oslo for its iOS and Mac Maps applications, according to Norway-based newspaper Aftenposten,” Mark Gurman reports for 9to5Mac.
“According to today’s report, Norway’s National Security Authority is not allowing Apple from capturing the 3D data needed for the feature. Apple uses small aircraft equipped with advanced camera systems and actually flies them around buildings,” Gurman reports. “The data is then processed at Apple and formatted for the Maps app.”
Gurman reports, “A Norway government official confirmed that it is blocking Apple because it does not want the company potentially mapping out confidential buildings and security measures within Oslo. Aftenposten provides the example of Norway not wanting Apple to film the headquarters of its intelligence teams, a building already banned from photographers… Because of the ban, Apple is working with the United States Embassy in Norway to resolve the issue.”
Read more in the full article here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Lynn Weiler” for the heads up.]
That’s cool and I respect the Norwegian government’s decision as long as no other company is allowed to do the same.
Bing Maps has Birds Eye coverage of Oslo.
That’s satellite view, nothing Norway can block. Plus, Flyover involves much more detail of the buildings, although I fail to see how anyone could gleam much national security information from the outside of a building.
Bird’s Eye imagery is captured at a 45-degree angle from low-flying aircraft.
In theory somebody could be standing next to the window having a secret meeting and Apple could be reading their lips on Camera. You can never be too careful. This just happened to me the other day 🙂
We couldn’t quite make out what you were saying because you were chewing gum at the time. Did you say “Vladimir” or “come over here”? We couldn’t quite figure that one out.
Your theory about Apple being able to read lips falls flat on its ass from just about every point of analysis; for a start, whatever is doing the filming would have to be hovering close to a window for any meaningful sense to be made of a person’s lips moving, whereas, in fact the filming is done via fly past.
Second, and this is a point that nobody else seems to have made; the 3D Flypast mode in Apple Maps is NOT a photographic image, it’s vector-based computer graphics BASED on the camera footage, chosen because vector graphics are much less data-dense than pixel-based imagery, thus faster to load and cheaper regarding network costs for consumers.
This feature was one that many made a big thing about; seems that many have completely forgotten it.
I was once outside the Joliet Penitentiary (on their parking lot) taking photos of the house across the street where my dad grew up. My camera was confiscated by the guards.
Let me emphasize, “Apple is working with the United States Embassy in Norway to resolve the issue.”
As if the US embassy, a foreign entity, had the power to stop the ban.
Has Apple tried doing the same “Apple uses small aircraft equipped with advanced camera systems and actually flies them around buildings,” for our buildings like the Pentagon, White House, or other buildings considered confidential or security sensitive?
If they have tried and Apple was allowed then we have security problems at home. If Apple was not allowed then why try doing it in other countries?
Why the sarcasm and disdain regarding the idea of Apple working with the U.S. embassy in Norway? It is not unusual for corporations to utilize diplomatic contacts to smooth over issues like this. It may not work, but it is certainly worth the effort.
Ridiculous! You can fly over all of Oslo using google earth…view all the buildings in 3D. Whats the diff?
So when C3 was working for Nokia, Oslo didn’t have a problem with them collecting 3D data, but now that it’s Apple they do?
Maybe Nokia made some calls to their Scandinavian neighbours…
duh, because Oslo, and Norway for that matter, is so strategically important to Californians…
The Norwegians still haven’t forgotten how the Wehrmacht invaded them in 1940 and occupied Oslo for five years until the liberation of Berlin on 1 May 1945 (Stalin wanted the flag of the Soviet Union to fly above the Reichstag in time for May Day celebrations) and the formal capitulation of the provisional German government (headed by Grand Admiral Doenitz) and armed forces one week later on 8 May 1945. In the meantime they installed a pro-German Quisling government to govern Norway during the German occupation.
They’re afraid that the U.S. might beat up their asses by way of a naval invasion of Narvik, as the Germans did in 1940 on top of sending paratroopers (Fallschirmjaegar) to secure the airfield in Oslo preparatory to landing an airborne brigade by way of Junkers Ju 52 transport aircraft.
You surely are a refreshmeny sometimes. Thank you
Most of you are missing the point. Norway is in the right to be super sensitive about its security buildings were bombed by one of their own 2 years ago. Almost 90 people died in the bombing and shooting rampage
Anders Breivik used Google Maps, which are not banned.
It’s completely understandable that the Norwegians might want to go a littler slower. Brievik created a distraction with the bombing and then used to confusion to slaughter a bunch of kids. Whether or no Google Maps were a part of his strategizing, it makes sense that a responsible government might want to go slowly.
It is a good thing that there are no other buildings or streets around those top secret buildings in Norway that pictures (and other real surveillance information) could be taken from.
Really! I would delete any flyover data and only use photos taken from an iPad and make a commercial about all the great things you can do with an iPad mini (that can topple an country like Norway).
Paranoia Norwegiana (par excellence). They will come to their senses, sooner or later, because it is an intelligent nation. They are surely not going “back to nature” a la Rousseau, they still allow cameras and aeroplanes flying over their country, sure. But sometimes intelligence is not a good enough remedy against paranoia.
Fsck ’em. No Maps for you!!!
Maybe they are worried we will replace Norway with Amway. 🙂
Norway is now trying to ban any person or automaton from taking photos from an aircraft. There is even talk about issuing memory erasing drugs to passengers of all flights over Norway if they looked out of the windows during take-off or landing. Birds are exempt from this ban if they don’t report to humans that the buildings have several sides.
What about Google?
Norwegians are simple peasant people, the oil money did nothing to improve their intellect, lazy negligent villagers, that’s Norway
Lisa, have you ever been out of the county you were born in? Norway is one of the most advanced countries in Europe. They beat the US in quite a few metrics like education and healthcare. You might stop and consider the fact that perhaps they have a point.
http://www.ifitweremyhome.com/compare/US/NO
Let’s look at this from another point of view: what if Samsung or Huawei wanted to do a map-related flyover of Washington, D.C. and environs? Or New York and other large cities, and the U.S. government forbade them from doing so? I’ll bet most of you who are so anti Norway right now would be defending the U.S. governments right to refuse the flyovers… You’d be talking about Samsung’s patent infringement or Huawei’s rumored infiltration of our communications infrastructure.
Norway absolutely has the right to refuse Apple’s request. As for the ad hominem attacks on Norway (@lisa, just to name one), you might want to look at the Norwegian education system and then compare it to the abysmal failure that constitutes much of ours before criticizing the Norwegian intellect.
It’s not always an equation of Apple = Good, Everything Else = Bad.
Of course as a sovereign nation Norway has all it’s rights to deny Apple or anyone else the flyover, nobody denies that. Unlike Google and C3 street views and flyovers, is Apple flyover worse?! Or is it a hidden compliment to Apple’s flyover quality, better than the others?
But, based on what reasons? Because of some confidential buildings and security measures within Oslo? What a lame excuse that is.
What about the flyover of cities in other countries? No top secret buildings there needed to be hidden from the eyes of birds and man? If there are, then start digging and make them underground and let the beauty of Oslo be seen to us other people, via flyover and other pictures, interested in Oslo and its nice friendly people. And by the way, please stop these constant road constructions in Oslo that have been almost “centuries” to make and the changes you make on them again and again :-).
Denial, based on laws that were withdrawn in 2005 is not acceptable for political decisions like that. It’s not the intelligencia in Norway that made this decision, it’s just their minority government, their politicians, not the Norwegian people nor their intelligensia. Decisions made out of Paranoia should never be the basis for political or otherwise peoples decisions, but that’s just not the reality we live in today. That’s includes not just Norwegians, but as well the US gov and most others nations as well.
And last I want to fix your equation, today it should read:
Apple= Simply the best, Everything else= lesser
The flyover by Apple should instead have been denied by New York instead of Oslo – based on the terror attack on the Twin Towers by air.
And the Norwegians should instead have blocked Street view from Google, because of the bombs the terrorist Breivik placed in Oslo’s streets in 2011.
Then, what should other nations ban based on similar reasons or paranoia? Street walking, tourists? Guns, because people get killed? Or, are there any other measures against or to prevent these criminals or terrorists?
Okay Apple, forget about Oslo and spend your time photographing Area 51. 😉
This will put a damper on my traveling there next never.